Emperor Chongzhao fell into the dream.
The surroundings in the dream were hazy, and he walked forward slowly.
A bridge appeared ahead, with a huge stone tablet beside it, on which was written:
[Three lives on the shore, turning the wheel of reincarnation, six lifetimes of bitter love trials.]
In the middle of the bridge stood a woman holding an umbrella.
Emperor Chongzhao walked onto the bridge.
The woman turned around. She wore a veil, her face unclear, but her eyes held a faint sadness. Her hair was devoid of jewels, with only a simple black wooden hairpin. On her head was an elegant, delicate light-colored flower crown, and she wore a cyan dress.
Consort Yun disliked the complicated palace etiquette and often dressed simply when alive.
“…Yueqing?” Emperor Chongzhao said.
“Your Majesty,” the woman responded, looking towards the lake surface below the bridge. The lake surface seemed to be a huge mirror, with various scenes flickering within it.
Emperor Chongzhao couldn’t help but ask: “Yueqing, what are you looking at?”
The woman: “Past lives.”
…Past lives?
Emperor Chongzhao was stunned.
He followed the woman’s gaze to the lake surface, which suddenly emitted a strong light. Several lines of text appeared on the water:
[Six lifetimes of love, disaster star brings calamity, harmony is difficult, no good outcome.]
The dream, following Qu Dubian’s edited content, pulled Emperor Chongzhao’s consciousness in, rapidly unfolding.
…
First life.
He was a general on the battlefield, Yueqing a young daughter from a noble family. They met and fell in love, but her family opposed the match. After much difficulty, they finally married.
In peacetime, life flowed smoothly. When war came, he donned armor. A certain victory turned to defeat due to a treacherous official’s machinations. He died on the battlefield.
Upon hearing the news, Yueqing was devastated. She embraced his body and took her own life.
Outside, white magnolias bloomed brilliantly, just as on their wedding night.
Second life.
He was a scholar heading to the capital for exams, Yueqing a royal clan daughter. He became the top scholar with a bright future. On an outing with friends, he fell in love at first sight with Yueqing, who was out for a spring excursion.
Years later, as a fourth-rank official favored by the emperor, he finally qualified to seek Yueqing’s hand. But the court urgently needed a princess to marry a barbarian tribe.
His political enemy smiled, suggesting Yueqing, as a royal clan member, could be made a princess and sent to the frontier.
He immediately stood up, declaring his love for Yueqing and asking the emperor’s blessing. Instead, he received twenty lashes, falling unconscious. When he awoke, he learned Yueqing had been made a princess and was to be married off immediately.
His enemy cruelly suggested he escort the princess for the first 300 li.
300 li outside the capital.
Yueqing wore red wedding attire and he wore red official robes. They had vowed to grow old together, but now he could only watch her marry another.
A few years later, Yueqing died of depression. He left the capital, never marrying.
A tomb for a princess in barbarian lands gained a guardian from the Central Plains.
Third life.
He was from a prominent family, Yueqing, a wandering knight. They met in the jianghu world and married, roaming together.
Years later, tired of their adventurous life, they found a secluded place to settle.
The bamboo forest was peaceful, their life content.
One day, returning from hunting, he found their jianghu enemy in their bamboo house. The enemy had killed Yueqing. Enraged, he lost control and killed the enemy, then held Yueqing’s body, grief-stricken.
The next day, a doctor came, shocked by the scene. After learning what happened, he left with pity and sympathy, saying: “How tragic… the lady was just two months pregnant. What a sin, alas…”
Hearing this, his palm trembling on Yueqing’s abdomen, he let out a beast-like howl of anguish.
…
Each life ended in tragedy. Even when they had children, none lived past three years old. Just when a happy ending seemed near, various people would interfere.
Until the sixth life.
His consciousness finally saw familiar scenes in the lake – his meeting with Yueqing in this life.
He watched the mirror-like illusions in the lake almost greedily.
A little girl smiled and took his hand. “Third Brother, I want that white magnolia from the tree!”
He lifted the little girl up. “Is this high enough?”
“Wow! I can reach it! So amazing, so high…”
At that time, Emperor Chongzhao was still a teenager, just entering the struggle for imperial power.
Though his attention to Yueqing was partly to befriend the Sword-Holding Marquis, the sweet-smiling little girl did genuinely evoke his affection, like for a younger sister.
As the struggle for the throne intensified, the capital became increasingly treacherous. The Sword-Holding Marquis, not wanting to get involved, decisively took his seven-year-old daughter to the northern frontier, staying for ten years.
When they returned, the former youth had become the supreme emperor.
Emperor Chongzhao thought perhaps the Sword-Holding Marquis believed the capital had stabilized, so he brought Yueqing back to find a good marriage in the capital, to wed with pomp and circumstance.
But unexpectedly, meeting again the little girl he had cherished in his youth, he couldn’t control his heart’s flutter.
Yueqing didn’t much like the capital, but eventually agreed to marry him.
The lake’s surface flashed very blurry snippets of their interactions at an extremely fast pace (mainly because Qu Dubian was unclear about the specific private interactions between his nominal father and Consort Yun, so it was blurred). Even though he couldn’t see clearly, Emperor Chongzhao’s memories involuntarily surfaced with bits and pieces of his time with Consort Yun.
The dead and the unattainable always become more perfect in memory.
The theory of “white moonlight and cinnabar mole[mfn]a person (often from one’s past) who is remembered as perfect or ideal, untainted by reality or the passage of time[/mfn]” from later generations still applies now.
Emperor Chongzhao already knew the ending of the sixth life, with Yueqing dying in childbirth, but experiencing it again, he saw a different scene.
At the moment the Astrology Bureau made the prophecy about Yueqing’s child, a star trailing black mist fell from the sky, crashing directly into the northeast direction of the imperial city – precisely the location of the Astrology Bureau.
The woman said: “The black star is a disaster star.”
The reincarnation scenes in the lake had ended, but Emperor Chongzhao was still lost in thought: “…Disaster star?”
The woman: “The disaster star brings calamity, harmony is difficult, no good outcome. Our love was interfered with by the disaster star, ultimately never having a good ending.”
“Disaster star…” Emperor Chongzhao recalled the direction where the black star fell, “The disaster star is in the Astrology Bureau?”
“Perhaps, I don’t know,” she turned around, “Your Majesty, how long have I been gone?”
Emperor Chongzhao was grief-stricken, “Nearly three years.”
“So it’s been three years…” she murmured, then asked worriedly and a bit urgently, “How is our child? Is he almost three years old now? What’s his personality like? What does he like to eat?”
“Is he very cute? Has he started learning? Does he ever think of me?”
“Has Your Majesty ever told him that his mother loved him very much?”
“…”
Emperor Chongzhao couldn’t utter a word. His mouth opened and closed, and he found himself unable to meet the woman’s gaze.
After a long while, he finally said in a low voice: “Our child, he is doing well…”
“That’s good.”
The woman repeated: “That’s good.”
She held Emperor Chongzhao’s hand, “Taking care of a child is hard work, I’m sorry… and I miss you too.”
As she finished her last sentence, the woman’s body dissolved into a mist, gently dispersing.
Another line of text appeared on the lake’s surface: [Six lifetimes of marriage end, no more meetings to come.]
Emperor Chongzhao stumbled forward, only managing to grasp a damp patch of mist.
“No——!!”
At this moment, Emperor Chongzhao, unaware he was in a dream, felt his hatred for the disaster star reach its peak.
–
“No——!!”
Emperor Chongzhao suddenly sat up in bed.
Head Eunuch Yu was startled awake, his drowsiness instantly vanishing as he scrambled over, “Your Majesty, Your Majesty?” He hurriedly lifted the curtain, then froze in place.
Emperor Chongzhao raised his hand, feeling wet tear tracks at the corner of his eye.
Head Eunuch Yu, terrified, softly asked: “Is Your Majesty unwell somewhere?”
Emperor Chongzhao slowly came to his senses.
“No,” his voice was hoarse.
After a while, he repeated, “It’s nothing.”
“I just… had a not-so-good dream.”
So it was a dream, thankfully just a dream.
Head Eunuch Yu naturally didn’t have the courage to respond, and stood by, bowing.
Emperor Chongzhao slowly exhaled, suppressing the dull pain in his heart, forcing himself to extract from the intense sorrow of the dream. In the blink of an eye, he transformed back into the emperor who showed no emotion.
“What time is it?”
Head Eunuch Yu: “It’s about time for Your Majesty to wake up. If we start preparing now, it will be just right.”
Emperor Chongzhao: “Mm.”
The palace servants attending to the emperor’s daily needs immediately became busy, and candles and lamps were lit in the side halls around Zichen Palace.
At the same time, carriages stopped at the dismounting stone in front of Donghua Gate. Court officials in crimson and purple robes walked in small groups, waiting for today’s grand court session.
Regular court sessions were held daily, but only officials of fifth rank and above, along with some in special positions, attended. Grand court sessions were held every ten days, with all civil and military officials attending to make unified reports. These were generally busier.
Emperor Chongzhao always attached great importance to grand court sessions, so the officials below him didn’t dare to be perfunctory.
After the ritual of “Long live the Emperor,” and following the head eunuch’s call of “Rise!”, the grand court session began.
All department officials had deliberately washed their faces with cold water before coming and had endured the cold wind on their way. Though they were still shivering from the cold, each was full of spirit.
Especially Minister Lin of the Ministry of Revenue, who was observing everything around him with great vigilance.
He was wary of anyone outside the Ministry of Revenue, fearing that someone might try to dig a pit and extract money from him.
The Minister of Works stepped forward: “Your Majesty.”
“The funds allocated three months ago for the construction of Yihe Official Bridge have been used up. We are now in the final stages of construction and request Your Majesty to allocate more funds to the Ministry of Works.”
The Minister of Revenue was instantly alarmed!
The first matter of the grand court session, the first person to speak, was trying to extract money from him? How unreasonable, how outrageous!
He immediately spat and sneered: “Two hundred and fifty thousand taels of silver poured in, and it’s still not enough to build a bridge? My Ministry of Revenue allocated two hundred and fifty thousand taels, so that’s all there is. If the construction period isn’t completed, it’s because your Ministry of Works didn’t budget properly! Using it all up and asking for more? Even a street urchin asking his mother for milk knows that if one feeding isn’t enough, he can have two. Minister Gu, at your age, do you still not understand this principle?”
This Minister Lin hadn’t come up through the regular examination system, but he had a special talent for managing money. The previous emperor had promoted him into the Ministry of Revenue, and over the years, he had climbed to the position of minister.
He prided himself on not being a traditional scholar and took pride in his reputation as a “miser,” so he never engaged in the formal, literary style of speech.
His scolding this time was still relatively “refined.” During the previous emperor’s time, it was purely vulgar, which had somewhat degraded the atmosphere of the court. Only after being yelled at repeatedly by the previous emperor did he improve slightly. The entire court and Emperor Chongzhao were long accustomed to this.
The Minister of Works, having endured countless scoldings, turned a deaf ear. Their ministry was always the scapegoat with little power and many responsibilities, an unloved place. Being scolded a bit was too normal; he understood.
He calmly bowed to the Minister of Revenue, then turned to the emperor, wiping his eyes and crying: “We still need fifty thousand taels of silver. This is already the result of extremely careful calculation.”
The accounting expert they had borrowed from the Ministry of Revenue had nearly worn out the abacus for this matter.
A military official snorted, “I said earlier that this bridge shouldn’t have been built. Although it’s a longer route for the common people to go around, wouldn’t it be better to add this money to the military funds?”
“Building bridges and roads benefits both the present and future generations. What’s this? Does this official think we shouldn’t build bridges or roads? The smooth ground your beloved horses gallop on is the result of road construction,” a Ministry of Works official retorted, flicking his sleeve. “Indeed, a brute! How can summer insects discuss ice!”
The military officials, who were initially a bit embarrassed, started to get angry after hearing this: “Who are you talking about?”
The Ministry of Works officials: “Using road construction funds for military expenses, you might as well run horses on your foreheads!” Taking money from our Ministry of Works for military expenses, how shameless!
A military official glared and shouted: “Your mother’s…!”
The Ministry of Works officials, red-faced: “You… you insolent upstart!”
They silently recited the words of Confucius, restraining the urge to spit at the military officials.
The Court Diarist on one side below was furiously writing down the officials’ words and actions, wracking his brains to polish their quarrelsome words, so that future generations would see this as a harmonious and friendly, elegant grand court session between civil and military officials.
Meanwhile, the Censorate officials responsible for impeachment were gleefully taking note of the officials who were arguing in court—they could impeach all of these people for improper conduct and disrespect before the emperor.
Whether His Majesty listens or looks is one matter, whether they impeach is another.
What kind of official hasn’t been impeached by the censors!
Grand court sessions have always been lively. While they argued below, Head Eunuch Yu above wore a pained expression.
He secretly glanced again at the emperor on the dragon throne. Emperor Chongzhao had been staring at the teacup on the table for who knows how long, his face serious, but actually lost in thought.
What could His Majesty be thinking about? This is the grand court session!
Hmm, haha.
The Diarist had it tough. Is he an ancient version of Editors? 😂